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Department Features

All majors will participate in the Senior Seminar (offered during spring semester), which is a capstone experience for their work in Philosophy. The seminar culminates with a 30-page paper that articulates and synthesizes the student’s position on philosophical issues. Students are encouraged to think in advance of the topics on which they would like to concentrate in developing a comprehensive philosophy. Ideally, the Junior Research Seminar should involve work that enables the student to flesh out and develop his/her special areas of concern.

Rhodes College has a long-standing commitment to promoting service activities. The philosophy department has participated in Rhodes’ efforts to utilize Service Learning as an effective tool for learning and assessing complex ideas. Consequently, courses in American Philosophy, Optimism/Pessimism and Theory of Knowledge have included service-learning components. Typically, students integrate course material with service experience in a paper presented to the class at the end of the semester.

Students who major in philosophy are encouraged to develop expertise in foreign languages. Greek and/or Latin are encouraged for those working with ancient and medieval texts, while German and/or French are important for those studying Continental thought from the past few centuries.

For students planning on continuing work at the graduate level, the GRE is required. Students are encouraged to begin exploring schools during their junior year. Most application deadlines are early January, so you’ll want to be sure to take the GRE in time (usually September or early October) for scores to arrive at the schools to which you are applying.

The philosophy department annually offers the Laurence F. Kinney Prize to the outstanding senior member of the department. The recipient is chosen on the basis of excellent grades as well as excellence as a well–rounded student of philosophy.

The information below describes typical occupations and employers associated with this major. Understand that some of the options listed below may require additional training. Moreover, you are not limited to these options alone when choosing a possible career path.

The Department of Philosophy helps students explore questions concerning the nature of reality, the role of values, obligations and choice in moral life, the sources of truth and meaning, and the power and limits of human reason and understanding.